While the big news for today will be Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before Congress today on the existential threat to his country if Iran is allowed to continue to build nuclear weapons, let me bring you up to speed on what is happening in the ethics front in New York while we wait.
State Level Shenanigans:
It has been reported that Gov. Cuomo quietly ordered sometime in 2013 that all state workers’ e-mails be automatically deleted after 90 days. Now this is interesting on many levels, but the most important was that this was ordered right before he created his commission to investigate corruption in the state goverment. When he disbanded his commission without warning, the US Attorney Preet Bharara took up the investigation which resulted in the arrest of Sheldon Silver, Speaker of the Assembly. [Here's a link to my previous post explaining all about that.]
Yeah, that's some good planning by Gov. Cuomo to make it easier to destroy evidence before he convened and then disbanded the investigation that got uncomfortably close to his own office. Fortunately, the state workers have not been very diligent in deleting their emails, so last month thousands of email were automatically deleted by the state's "chief information officer". One can imagine that this has made a very many people quite upset and hopefully one of them will be US Attorney Preet Bharara.
Gov. Cuomo has made it very clear that he is really, really pushing to overhaul the ethics laws in New York government and said he won't approve a budget without major changes. It all seems to hinge on the long-criticized state laws that require how much lawmakers have to disclose about their private income and clients that they service. It seems way too many of our state legislators may have clients who may or may not have official business with the state creating what may or may not appear to be a conflict of interest. Since the majority of elected officials are Democrats, the Republicans who are not exactly saints in regards to the conflict issue, have taken the side of more disclosure and transparency. So to tweak the Governor just a bit because they know he really just wants to get this settled as quickly and quietly as possible, several GOP legislators have floated the idea to require that live-in girlfriends' income must be disclosed just like a spouse.
You may not know this, but Gov. Cuomo has been living with his FoodTV Network cooking show star/hostess Sandra Lee (I hesitate to ever give her the moniker "chef") since his divorce from Kathleen Kennedy (yes, one of THE Kennedys) years ago. Instead of living in the Governor's mansion in Albany, they have chosen to live in her multi-million dollar mansion in tony Westchester County. But, since the embarrassing episode in Oregon where Governor John Kitzhaber recently was forced to resign over claims that his fiance Cylvia Hayes was selling her access to the Governor, one would think that Gov. Cuomo would be more than willing to embrace this idea or at the very least, not dismiss it outright. But his office responded with the assurance that Ms. Lee has no business before the state and then with an "anonymous" quote "suggesting that the financial disclosure measure be expanded 'to include all girlfriends, even those of married members' of the Legislature." Cheeky little devil is this "anonymous" quote-source.
New York City Level Shenanigans:
At the first of the year, our Mayor Diblasio, mandated that illegals and any other citizen of the city (but mostly illegals) who didn't have proper photo identification would be able to get one free of charge courtesy of the City of New York. The new NYC Municipal ID will allow those who do not have ID to open checking accounts and do other business that requires a photo ID to be able to do so within New York City. All one has to have is some kind of documentation that proves that you have an address in NYC. To sweeten to pot, along with new NYCID, a whole host of free stuff comes with it - free memberships to various museums and cultural isntitutions, prescription drug discounts, grocery discounts and may other goodies. The ID can also serve as a library card.
As a taxpaying citizen of the City of New York, I was very interested in getting all that free stuff too, so I applied for my NYCID on Friday. All I had to do was fill out a form and present my NY State drivers license to prove I had an address in NYC, and bing bang boom, I will get my new NYCID in 4 weeks. Which brings me to the other part of the story. Remember I told you that this was primarily so that Mayor Diblasio could give proper identification to illegal aliens in our city? Well, this week, the Mayor passed an executive order that all information and applications regarding NYCID will be destroyed on December 31, 2016 to protect any ID holders just in case the new WH Administration should be a little more inclined to uphold our federal immigration laws.
What is it with New York State Democrats and their need to destroy evidence?
Any questions, comments, updates?
[+] Read More...
State Level Shenanigans:
It has been reported that Gov. Cuomo quietly ordered sometime in 2013 that all state workers’ e-mails be automatically deleted after 90 days. Now this is interesting on many levels, but the most important was that this was ordered right before he created his commission to investigate corruption in the state goverment. When he disbanded his commission without warning, the US Attorney Preet Bharara took up the investigation which resulted in the arrest of Sheldon Silver, Speaker of the Assembly. [Here's a link to my previous post explaining all about that.]
Yeah, that's some good planning by Gov. Cuomo to make it easier to destroy evidence before he convened and then disbanded the investigation that got uncomfortably close to his own office. Fortunately, the state workers have not been very diligent in deleting their emails, so last month thousands of email were automatically deleted by the state's "chief information officer". One can imagine that this has made a very many people quite upset and hopefully one of them will be US Attorney Preet Bharara.
Gov. Cuomo has made it very clear that he is really, really pushing to overhaul the ethics laws in New York government and said he won't approve a budget without major changes. It all seems to hinge on the long-criticized state laws that require how much lawmakers have to disclose about their private income and clients that they service. It seems way too many of our state legislators may have clients who may or may not have official business with the state creating what may or may not appear to be a conflict of interest. Since the majority of elected officials are Democrats, the Republicans who are not exactly saints in regards to the conflict issue, have taken the side of more disclosure and transparency. So to tweak the Governor just a bit because they know he really just wants to get this settled as quickly and quietly as possible, several GOP legislators have floated the idea to require that live-in girlfriends' income must be disclosed just like a spouse.
You may not know this, but Gov. Cuomo has been living with his FoodTV Network cooking show star/hostess Sandra Lee (I hesitate to ever give her the moniker "chef") since his divorce from Kathleen Kennedy (yes, one of THE Kennedys) years ago. Instead of living in the Governor's mansion in Albany, they have chosen to live in her multi-million dollar mansion in tony Westchester County. But, since the embarrassing episode in Oregon where Governor John Kitzhaber recently was forced to resign over claims that his fiance Cylvia Hayes was selling her access to the Governor, one would think that Gov. Cuomo would be more than willing to embrace this idea or at the very least, not dismiss it outright. But his office responded with the assurance that Ms. Lee has no business before the state and then with an "anonymous" quote "suggesting that the financial disclosure measure be expanded 'to include all girlfriends, even those of married members' of the Legislature." Cheeky little devil is this "anonymous" quote-source.
New York City Level Shenanigans:
At the first of the year, our Mayor Diblasio, mandated that illegals and any other citizen of the city (but mostly illegals) who didn't have proper photo identification would be able to get one free of charge courtesy of the City of New York. The new NYC Municipal ID will allow those who do not have ID to open checking accounts and do other business that requires a photo ID to be able to do so within New York City. All one has to have is some kind of documentation that proves that you have an address in NYC. To sweeten to pot, along with new NYCID, a whole host of free stuff comes with it - free memberships to various museums and cultural isntitutions, prescription drug discounts, grocery discounts and may other goodies. The ID can also serve as a library card.
As a taxpaying citizen of the City of New York, I was very interested in getting all that free stuff too, so I applied for my NYCID on Friday. All I had to do was fill out a form and present my NY State drivers license to prove I had an address in NYC, and bing bang boom, I will get my new NYCID in 4 weeks. Which brings me to the other part of the story. Remember I told you that this was primarily so that Mayor Diblasio could give proper identification to illegal aliens in our city? Well, this week, the Mayor passed an executive order that all information and applications regarding NYCID will be destroyed on December 31, 2016 to protect any ID holders just in case the new WH Administration should be a little more inclined to uphold our federal immigration laws.
What is it with New York State Democrats and their need to destroy evidence?
Any questions, comments, updates?